The Hunted: 'We Were Ready to Die'

By

Peter Wonacott and

Geeta Anand

Updated Nov. 28, 2008 11:59 p.m. ET

MUMBAI -- At Mumbai's St. George Hospital, victims of one of the worst terror attacks in India's history were laid behind white partitions, on sheets and mattresses stained with blood. On the other side of the dividers, friends and relatives sat numbly on wood benches. A few doctors joined them, slumped in exhaustion.

"We treated people through the night. But this morning, it was just bodies that came," said Gokul Bhole. The 26-year-old doctor at this small city hospital paused. "Eleven bodies," he said.

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The scene came as police struggled to regroup Thursday afternoon after a grueling night of setbacks in a battle against suspected Islamic militants. The attacks began late Wednesday night and unfolded over hours as more than a dozen terrorists with guns and explosives tore through posh hotels, popular restaurants, a major railway station and a Jewish center in the heart of India's biggest city.

The coordinated attacks across the city's affluent Colaba financial district suggested the assailants knew where large groups of Westerners could be found and killed. Hotel guests who escaped said the terrorists were asking for people with U.S. and British passports.

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One of the first targets was the Leopold Cafe, a backpacker hangout just behind the luxury Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel. The cafe offers cheap beer and food with an open view of Mumbai's vibrant street life.

That exposure made the place an easy target when two gunmen in their mid-20s arrived, apparently coming from boats at a nearby dock. According to the cafe's owner, Farhang Jehani, gunshots hit about 10 people, tables turned over and some rushed to the street.

The gunmen then moved on.

Sajjad Karim, 38, a British member of the European Parliament, was waiting just outside the main entrance of the Taj, a dome-topped city landmark, when he saw a boy and girl come running. The girl was bleeding from her leg.

Hearing gunshots, Mr. Karim started running, too. As his group rushed for an exit, a young man popped out. Mr. Karim fixed his sight on his machine gun.

"He was young. He had on dark clothing. But my concentration was on his gun," said Mr. Karim. "Puff-puff-puff."

People in front of him fell.

Amrita Jhaveri, a jewelry consultant from Mumbai who lives in London, heard the same gunfire. She was dining with her British husband upstairs at the Taj's Wasabi by Morimoto restaurant. Quick-thinking hotel staff led the guests from the Japanese restaurant down a corridor, through the kitchen into a private club called Chambers. Guests from other restaurants at the hotel were also brought there.

The staff turned the lights off and urged everyone to stay calm. About 200 people were gathered.

"We were expecting the worst," Ms. Jhaveri said. "We knew the hotel was on fire. We knew there were terrorists next door. We knew they might storm the room any second, the fire might engulf us," she said. "We were ready to die."

Noriyuki Kanda, a sushi chef at the Wasabi restaurant, said the first shots he heard sounded like something from television. Then, unmistakable rapid fire from a machine gun. People who rushed into the small restaurant said that four men were shooting people in the lobby.

Mr. Kanda and other hotel staff led another group of customers to the back hallways, through haze and smoke. Some guests went back to their rooms, and some sought the exit. Mr. Kanda retreated to his room and tried to keep tabs on the situation by cell phone.

Through the night, Mumbai's police officers suffered setbacks. Eleven police were killed in the gunfire, including three top officers. At one point, militants reportedly stole a police vehicle before being gunned down. Fire engulfed the 105-year old Taj hotel.

The attacks spread to a complex that houses the upscale Oberoi and Oberoi Trident hotels. At the Oberoi's Tiffin restaurant, a woman from South Mumbai said she saw a man pointing a large gun at her through the restaurant's glass door just as she sat down with five friends. She flung herself to the floor and then heard shots, screams and shattering glass.

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"I just lay on the ground, shut my eyes and pretended to be dead," said the woman, who asked not to be identified.

She said two men walked around the restaurant shooting people. She heard more screams, and dishes falling.

A few minutes later all went quiet, and a member of the hotel staff asked those who were alive to raise their hands. She lifted her head and saw several hands go up around the room. Then, the hotel staffer said: "Anyone who can walk, follow me," according to the Mumbai resident. She rose and followed through the kitchen and outside, passing the bodies of several people.

None of her five friends at the table followed. She isn't sure what happened to them.

The hotels appeared carefully chosen as targets. The Taj occupies a singular place in Mumbai life. Originally commissioned by Jamsetji Tata, founder of India's Tata Group, the hotel is the center for business, entertaining, and upscale dining for the city's financial community and for visiting dignitaries.

"The Taj Mahal Hotel and the Oberoi are not just the Four Seasons and Pierre of New York City. They are much more. They are its lifeline and blood," Prashant Agrawal, chief executive of Indipepal.com, an Indian Internet portal based in Mumbai, wrote in an email.

Victims arrived at nearby hospitals, such as the St. George, next to the stately CST railway station, where militants were also shooting people. Ambulances, private cars and the city's black-and-yellow cabs carried the dying and the dead. Hospital staffs were quickly overwhelmed.

Peter Keep, a Mumbai-based entrepreneur, went to a local hospital to help a friend who had been shot. He counted more than 40 bodies and an equal number of injured, including foreigners.

"It was just chaos, with doctors and nurses running around and lots of blood," he said. He saw a British national who had just arrived in India with plans to wander around the country, with "two or three gunshot wounds in his chest."

As the doctors struggled to prevent a rising death toll, hundreds remained trapped inside the hotels.

At about 4 a.m., Ms. Jhaveri, the jewelry consultant, was huddling with others in at the Taj's Chambers dining room. The group tried to flee. As they headed down a corridor, gunshots rang out and the guests fell over one another in fright, dashing back into the room.

Ms. Jhaveri worried the terrorists would storm in and pick her British husband out of the crowd. "We decided we wouldn't be separated. It didn't matter if we had to die, we wanted to be with one another," she said.

Ms. Jhaveri was led outside the hotel at 9 a.m., and into an awaiting bus. She could still hear guns being fired.

By Thursday, India's army arrived to help the police surround the besieged buildings. Mr. Kanda, the sushi chef, managed to escape from the Taj hotel around 2 p.m. On his way out through the lobby, he gazed down at bodies and a bloody floor awash in disinfectant.

As the sun climbed and the weather turned hot, a stillness fell over the city. Shops were shuttered. Cars zipped through largely empty streets. People stood outside the Taj, waiting for the next step of the security forces. Gunshots were heard, and the building's famous facade continued to burn.

—Eric Bellman in Singapore and Alistair MacDonald in London contributed to this article.

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